This research focuses on three basic questions. (1) How do the large number of people, those who never get into the professional system, cope with their problems? What locally based, informal resources and patterns of helping do they utilize? (2) What is the effect of formal service delivery patterns and community context upon individual problem coping? (3) How can we make social services more cost-effective? Conceptually we view the community as made up of ecologically distinct populations, each of which is characterized by unique patterns of helping and client career experiences. We take a multi-level approach to the helping service system. The basic divisions are lay service system, quasi-institutional services, formal agencies, and inter-organizational relationships. Through observation and personal interviewing we propose to collect data on ecological populations in a number of communities. Assessments will be made of social networks, coping behaviors, problems incidence, particularly salient persons and settings for help giving, and patterns of professional utilization. From this set of respondents randomly chosen sets of households in several neighborhoods of each community will be selected. This subsample will be contacted and reinterviewed periodically over a three year time span. Information will be collected on recent problem solving behaviors and change and progress will be assessed over time. Concurrently, data will be collected on the formal service structure in each of the communities. Also, people identified as important lay and quasi- institutional helpers will be recruited as respondents and their attitudes, operating styles, and positions in the total helping system assessed.